Weighing In on Obesity
Feds: Obesity Raising Airline Fuel Costs
So, how long will it be before some airline takes the obvious step of charging by the pound for their flights? It really does make sense that someone weighing, say, 300 pounds (not an unusual weight in today's "supersize me" world) should pay proportionately more than someone weighing in at a more reasonable 125 or 175 pounds. As this article mentions, some airlines are now requiring those whose bulk flows over into a second seat to actually pay for that seat.
While this article brings a morning chuckle, it also causes us to think a bit. The airline industry is rightly concerned with fuel consumption - perhaps not because of concern for the environment or for our dwindling reserves of hydrocarbons as much as concern about their profit margins, but concerned none the less. We should all take a cue from this, and think about what else our burgeoning bulk is affecting. How many of those massive SUV's on our highways and byways are lugging around equally massive passengers? (As an aside, could this be one of the reasons for the popularity of these behemoths?) What difference in fuel mileage would there be if the vehicle load were reduced by, say, a couple hundred pounds? Surely there must be someone out there reading this who has the smarts and the time to figure out the savings over time, but for now, my intuition says that a couple hundred pounds, in a few million vehicles, over billions of road miles might add up to a pretty substantial savings - in fuel, in wear and tear on our roads and our environment, and in lives - for with that extra weight comes a host of health problems.
This could be taken even further, perhaps even to the absurd. Or not so absurd, maybe... How about the extra energy required to hoist the overweight up in elevators and escalators? The added expense and load on our hospitals who are now purchasing "supersized" beds and wheelchairs (even multi-million-dollar scanners are being redesigned!) and having to add staff to safely move larger patients. There must be many more simple, day-to-day things, things we all take for granted, where a reduction of a few pounds here and a few pounds there could add up to a substantial savings.
Please do not think that I'm suggesting that this is all the fault of the overweight. True, they are the ones with the extra pounds, but it may be that they have simply fallen prey to the addictive qualities of our Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) with it's reliance on empty carbohydrates from grains and simple sugars. Our own government's "Food Pyramid" perpetuates this unhealthy diet with it's insistence on eating up to 11 servings daily of carbohydrate-rich grains and cereals, while suggesting that high protein, low carbohydrate choices should form a much smaller part of the diet. That, with our less-than-healthy modern farming and food processing methods are leading us to be both overfed and starved at the same time.
Something to think about, as we ponder whether to "supersize" our fries, and consider whether to have one or two Krispy Kreme donuts for desert...
Cheers,
Nurse Mark
Wellness Club website:
www.DrMyattsWellnessClub.com
9:38:06 AM 
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